If This is not Brainwashing, Then what is!!!

On Monday June 20th, the Kuwaiti newspaper “ AlRai Al3am” distributed an (A1) size poster which I’m posting hereunder, I know that most of you bloggers read the news online and most probably unaware of this poster, and since the photo is small and you won’t be able to read it, I’m rewriting it’s content in the following ( for clarification purposes: my comments are in blue and the writing is in red):

On top (right and middle):

ماسى السفر
اهلا و سهلا .. اجازة رائعة

The hotel (on the upper right):

فندق الحضارة و التقدم و التحرير
الزيارة الخاصة غير ممنوعة و لكن ..بشروط..!!؟؟

On top of the hotel:

انس همومك
انقى انواع المخدرات
جرب و لن تندم
التجربة مجانا
دار الفلاح
للرقص المباح و الطرب الصداح
( ريع الدار مخصص للعمل الخيري)

احدث افلام
الطهارة
و العفة
و الفضيلة

المتعة الشريفة في
متناول يدك..؟؟
ارخص الاسعار

صالة قمار متطورة..
شعارنا : المكسب مضمون
و الربح حلال

Does that mean that I should not stay in a hotel?

At The bar door (top middle):

بار التعارف البريئ
مشروباتنا خالية من السموم نهائيا
اشرب انك انت الضيف الحبيب

Any drink in a bar is poisonous!!!

At the restaurant door (top middle):

مطعم الصدق و الامانة
سمك مذبوح على الطريقة الاسلامية
و خال من لحم الخنزير تماما

Don’t kid yourself by eating fish, you are still sinning.

On the boutique (top middle):

دار الازياء المحتشمة
المركز الدولى للتعديل و التجميل

On the pink pig standing by the boutique:

الستر و العفاف
خاص للعائلات
ممنوع دخول الاجانب

The pig’s tail is pointing to the beach
Whoever visits the beach is a pig!!

In front of the bank (on the left corner):

تمتع قبل فوات الاوان
العمر لن يعود
اسعد الاوقات

On the bank:

بنك الحبايب

معاملاتنا شرعية خالية من الربا 100%؟

تسهيلات خاصة لرواد البلاجات و المتع الحلال
القرض بفائدة 17.5% فقط و لا نقبل الرشاوي مطلقا

It’s a sin to deal with banks abroad!!

Street signs:

اينما ذهبت نحن بخدمتك

شارع السعادة

شارع الحب

الى الشاطئ

There is Al7ob Street in Kuwait as well, so is Kuwait considered one of the forbidden countries!

On the plane:

خطوط الحرية السريعة

سفرا سعيدا

Station sign:

محطة الوصول : اسيا. اوروبا. افريقيا. استراليا. امريكا

All the continents are forbidden!!
Notice the woman who has taken off her Islamic clothing as soon as she departed the plane!!
And also notice how the artist had drawn her body without the 3abaya Islamiya !!

The banner at the bottom read as follows:

بسم الله و الحمد لله و الصلاة و السلام على رسول الله و على اله و صحبه و سلم اجمعين و بعد
قال تعالي:( اقترب للناس حسابهم و هم فى غفلة معرضون, ما ياتيهم من ذكر من ربهم محدث الا استمعوه و هم يلعبون, لاهية قلوبهم …) ( الانبياء:1:3)

و قال تعالي: ( فذرهم يخوضوا و يلعبوا حتى يلاقوا يومهم الذى يوعدون) (الزخرف :83)؟
و قال تعالي: (… و نحن اقرب اليه من حبل الوريد) (ق :16)؟
و قال تعالي: ( … ان الله خبير بما تعملون) (الحشر : 18)؟
و قال تعالي: ( … نسوا الله فنسيهم…) ( التوبة : 67)؟

و قال رسول الله( صلى الله عليه و سلم ): (كلكم راع و كلكم مسؤول عن رعيته..) متفق عليه
و قال عليه الصلاة و السلام: لا تحشد الرحال الا الى ثلاثة مساجد : المسجد الحرام, و مسجدي هذا, و المسجد الاقصى) متفق عليه

احبتنا فى الله
ان بعض الناس ربما هرب فى الاجازة الصيفية من الحر الشديد, الى اماكن باردة, و هذا لا محذور فيه اذا كان ذلك السفر مضبوطا بضوابط الشرع الحنيف, الا ان بعض المسلمين “هداهم الله” يظن انه بسفره للخارج قد خرج عن مراقبة الله ” عز و جل” فتراه يقتحم النار بافعاله : نظر محرم..مشروبات محرمة.. مراقص.. اغان..فواحش… الخ

Once again: elthawabi6 elshar3iya la7gatna, la7gatna

اخى المسلم…رعاك الله
تمتع بما احل الله لك من وسائل: تكييف, و راحة, و سفر, و لكن– اياك- ان تكون ممن يهرب من حر الدنيا, الى الحر الاكبر فى نار جهنم

Nar jahanam BILBON6 EL3AREETH
Wouldn’t we be better off to spend our vacation at home!!

اللهم احفظ الاسلام و اهلة من كل مكروه.. اللهم احفظ الاسلام و اهله من كل مكروه… امين… امين… امين… انه ولى ذلك والقادر عليه

اخوتنا فى الاسلام
سعر هذه اللوحة.. دعوة صالحة للمسلمين

و جزى الله خيرا من اعاد طبعها, و ساعد في نشرها و توزيعها

That’s me, and now I can leave to Ibiza with a clear conscience :p.

للتوزيع المجاني: السلام عليكم
Some contact numbers

تحذير
نهيب بالاخوة الاعزاء الاحتفاظ بهذه الوحة فى مكان طاهر لما فيه من ذكر لله-عز و جل-
قال تعالى : ( ذلك و من يعظم شعائر الله فانها من تقوى القلوب) ( الحج : 22)؟
هذا و صلى الله على نبينا محمد و على اله و صحبه و سلم اجمعين, و الحمد لله رب العالمين

Now I’m confused; what shall I do with the poster, and where can I keep it. I guess I should be contacting them for a definition of “almakan al6ahir”!!!

I wish I was born amidst the Renaissance Era

Technology can be really annoying at times; sometimes when you would like to be left alone to enjoy your privacy and gather your thoughts, people would just not let you be. You ignore your telephone calls and they are after you with their SMS’s, sometimes I really hate SMS’s, especially when the person who sends it knows that you have ignored his phone calls and still wants you to get the message. And when you reply it’s bad because you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feeling by saying:’ buzz off, I can’t talk now, I need to be by myself for a while to think things over”, and most of the times they take it personally and get hurt, and when you don’t it’s even worse coz the SMS’s never stop or they would start worrying.
We have all means of communication, whatever information we need or don’t need are at the tip of our fingers, there is no room for imagination, or if there is it’s completely distorted, and that’s why at times we need to just be left alone, to be with the self that we have forgotten in the chaos of life, to feed the mind and recharge it with imagination, is that too hard to understand?

I think I really need this vacation now.

A side note:
Sorry if I have hurt your feelings, I never meant to, but I have been used and misused all my life until I have developed immunity against that; so stop being persistent, and stop f*&*ing with my mind; it doesn’t work.

Dangerous Beauty

Sapphire and gold
Are dangerous I’m told:
“Of their charming magic beware
Deceit, betrayal you’ll harvest there
Despite what innocence that they may hold”

But they all should know; I am aware
That baby green sea is too much to handle
Its serenity is one form of swindle
For as I give in to its tranquility
I may lose my grip and my ability
And drown in there with just a quill and a candle

And that by itself is a tedious affair

Yet, a poet; I adore dangerous beauty
Keen to discover the knight in duty
Riding righteously on a bay horse
Two beauties wandering in nature’s course
Both; one possessed with jest and surety

I rest my case, it’s time to declare:

In those green eyes I’m willing to dive
Their rays of power inject my drive
Despite what treachery that they may share
And loads of pain that I may bear

Exploring splendor is my affair

So regardless of what, it may or may not!
I hereby declare;
I dare to care

Government Bureaucracy

Thank you dear commentators for being so sympathetic with me and my passport issue, I really appreciate it even though I can’t consider this problem concerns me alone..

Also I like to give a special thanks to Bo-Rakan for adopting the case and presenting it to a wider public.

And although I would have liked to comment earlier but I had no connection line since Monday;
An MPW’s contractor or MEW’s contractor (never got to know which) who is executing projects in Salwa had accidentally damaged MOC’s cables and as a result more than 200 lines were cut off from Salwa area. I spend the past three days calling different numbers and everyone directed me to another, not only that, but each one’s story contradicted with the other, and I got nowhere and no answer to when will I get my line back. So I had to do my own calculations, this also reminded me of AlSan3oosi’s show the other night at Alrai when he played a vedio clip showing Salwa with its ever doomed excavation asking the officials in the government: when will this mess end?

A very valid question indeed.

Now without going much into details of why such accidents should happen in the first place and to that high level, which is by itself a different story, let’s see when I would most likely get my connection line:

The contractor claims that the repair work needs one week max, while MOC officials say: we don’t know!!!!

Let’s analyze the facts according to this scenario:

The contractor is counting the man-hours needed to repair as well as the cost of the repair, while the service ministry that is supervising the contractor who caused the damage is at lost, their calculations of the time needed for repair is subject to the following factors::

1-Who is responsible for this?

Is the contractor at fault or the ministry’s ill management was behind it? And who should bare the cost? The length of this period varies depending on the ministry’s project manager’s decision backed up by his team that, in most cases, are much less qualified than that of the contractor they are supervising, which could raise an issue for a serious dispute that might take a long time. But let’s assume that this cable case is much simpler than that and therefore the project manager has decided to issue a variation order right away.

2-Preparation of variation order by the contractor would take at least two days.

3- Approval of the variation order by the ministry’s officials which takes at least one week to circulate could also stretch to years depending on the two party’s bases of agreement.

And since we are talking about this dispute, it’s worth while mentioning that in most delayed cases some contractors take it on their own accounts to fix the damage without the approvals on the variation order, relying on the work order submitted by the project managers and the ministerial sectors they represent in an effort to meet the project’s completion date and therefore late fees can be avoided, they need to build a strong case though. And after the project is completed, the contractor would submit his claim and this is where a smart contractor can make a good buck when he calculates his claim exponentially with time; which means the longer it takes to pay his claim, the higher would become the claim. An example of that is the fact that more than 100 claims worth more than 30 million KD’s are still in MPW archives of which some are dated before the invasion and has not been settled yet.

Now back to the cable: if we take the contractor’s man hour calculation as one week of working days, that means; the minimum time I should be expecting my connection line back is not less than two weeks if I allowed some space for overlapping activities or it might take years; And that’s why the ministry’s officials don’t know how long it would take to repair the cable.

This problem is one of many problems Salwa is facing and one of its main causes is the service ministries themselves; each ministry’s project execution plans are not related to those of the other service ministries who are executing their projects in the same area. And although, supposedly, these projects all fall in the same infra structure plan, they sometimes conflict each other causing unnecessary delays, add to that the hidden cost that goes to waste due to the constant excavation and rebuilding of the same areas as each ministry is working on his own.
And although the same could be applicable to many areas in Kuwait, we see it more distinct in Salwa.

Then Bo-6ariq; do you expect anyone to be able to answer your question?

As for me I have decided to use the GPRS WAP technology to reconnect with my blog buddies before leaving for my summer vacation on 15th of July, and that’s if I could get my Schengen visa stamped on time, on my new passport which I still did not receive yet.

PS:
MEW: The Ministry of Electricity and Water AKA; the Ministry of Energy
MPW: The Ministry of Public Works
MOC: The Ministry of Communication

3ajabi !

I’m so pissed off; I can’t believe that while we are priding ourselves for having a women minister, our laws and regulations still consider women as a second degree citizen.
Today I went to one of the service centers to renew my passport, I had to wait for an hour and then they informed me that I had to have a male guardian present; either a husband of father or brother, when I tried to protest, they told me it’s the law, and by law a Kuwaiti woman can’t travel without the permission of her male guardian.

At 16 I have gone across the seas all on my own and now at my age I need a male guardian to renew my passport? I mean WTF

I wonder when Dr. Almobark issues a ministerial decree; would she need to have her husband as a cosigner?

The universal silence week

Starting from June 18, the universe is celebrating the universal silence week, I’m sure that many of you do not know the significance of silence in our life, and there is no better way to introduce it than this e-mail I got from the Bahrain Meditation Center, enjoy your silence everyone, and get to know yourself better:

“This Week”
by the
Bahrain Meditation Centre
18th June, 2005
Retreat

Today more people than ever are going on retreats, people from different walks of life, from a variety of age groups and from cities, suburbia or an island. Though it can be attributed to the pace and complexity of life today, the reason is there is a need – people are seeking something deeper, meaningful and most of all innate.

Retreats are a temporary withdrawal from our daily routine designed to help us re-align our focus with our values and inspire us to live our spiritual centre within that routine. In fact the term retreat has been derived from the military. The army would retreat from battle in times of uncertainty to re-align its troops for an effective victory.

The purpose of retreats has always been to attain a deep insight into one’s existence and one’s own individual nature, and in some cases to find God. It is the deep desire for some silence, solitude and reflection that draws us to retreat. These desires are not unique to our time; in fact pilgrims have been retreating for centuries to find their inner peace and it is perfectly natural to do so. However, it is true that we tend to connect retreats to a spiritual discipline as they traditionally were done within a monastic context. Places maintained for retreats tend to have very special vibrations; this reflects the power of the collective consciousness that accumulates over time.

Though retreats today take many different forms, their main intention should be to cultivate some space for silence and self-awareness. Silence should always be one of the main components of all retreats and it is what sets a retreat apart from the affairs of daily living. Silence works not only on the soul but at the more tangible level of the body. It is a physical relief to be in a silent environment, even for a day. Noise pollution is one of the principal causes of stress in the world today. Imagine what New York would be like if for ten minutes everyone went about their business in silence?

Let us define silence. Silence is not simply to step away from the hum and drum of city life into a place of solitude. A real retreat will give you a taste of a quiet mind and a confidence that this can be achieved any time and any place. Whilst on retreat choose not to speak for some hours, or days even, and you will be more gathered, more contained, more present with yourself than if you had used words. One begins to sense the weight of words, how potent they can be and how wise it is not to waste them. Furthermore genuine silence is about gaining a grip on our mind. Practise creating fewer and fewer thoughts i.e. making the mind simple, so that it can reach into the deeper recesses of your being for those hidden pearls.

So this week or this year, as you plan your time away, may we suggest you ‘treat’ your self and take the ultimate journey… back to your inner self.

Om Shanti
(I am a peaceful soul)

Bahrain Meditation Centre is administered by B.K.W.S.U.

Women do make a difference

It surprises me how many writers have written about the Sheeat gathering at Ali Al Moosa’s diwaniyah showing their disappointment for not having a Sheeat minister in the government, and later on about Al Galaf’s comment upon the appointment of Dr. Al Mobarak, as if these conducts are foreign to our country. In fact these Prejudices are rooted in our society for as long as I can remember; the system itself was built on such bases.
Look at the government’s structure for example; certain ministries are reserved for the Royal family, others for Nigadah, yet other posts are reserved for tribal inhabitants and some for Sheeat, and the weight of each group indicates what ministry they are allowed to hold.

Do you remember sometimes back when Ahmad Elfahad addressed the Sheeat members to nominate a Sheeat Minister right in the parliament? Do you remember the chaos that resulted from his behavior after that?

So when the system is built on such fallacy, you do expect that each minister would naturally sympathize with his own group. When a Sheeat minister for example is appointed, in no time you see his ministry is flooded with Sheeat and chances are that they’d have better chances for promotions, and the same is true with other groups.

In my opinion AlGalaf’s disapproval of Dr. Al Mobarak was not because she is a woman, remember her first interview on the newspapers she declared openly that “she is not appointed because of her religious belonging, rather for her qualifications”, and that what scared AlGalaf and other Sheeats, they wanted her a puppet in their hands and she gave them the first warning, let’s read between the lines;” I’m here for my qualifications and I only respect the ones who hold the same regardless of their background or religious beliefs”, and that was the real blow to Al Galaf and his group.

Let’s not forget also that The Ministry of Planning is not considered one of the most important ministries and that’s another undeclared reason behind AlGalaf’s disappointment.

In a nutshell; I think with this statement Dr. Al Mobarak did not only challenge the Sheeat group, she also set an example for others to follow regardless of the corrupt system. Way to go

Am I sensing some air of change? Well I hope so

What is your role as a true friend?

A question that imposed itself on a conversation last night as I hung out with some friends:

If you know that your best friend’s wife/husband is cheating on him/her; would you tell him/her? And why?

The Electronic Government

A friend of mine directed me to a site that might be a step towards the electronic government

Check this out

Foziya Al-Ba7ar

I was surprised when she got appointed as a municipality member, since she is not the type of a person that liked publicity (as I heard) and I have never met her in my career life, nor have I seen her in The Engineering Society during my active years there. But I knew beforehand that she was nominated by the Society along with other six women engineers for the post and I heard all good things about her.
The other day and precisely on Sunday June 12, as I was lazily reading my newspaper(AlQabas), I skimmed through an interview with her, and all what I read was not different than any other ( kalam jarayed) until I got to the bottom of the page and a statement caught my eye:

و مطلوب من اعضاء المجلس البلدي و كذلك كبار موظفي البلدية ان يكونوا قدوة حسنة للاخرين , و انا شخصيا افضل ان يقدم كل عضو في المجلس ذمته المالية في اول يوم عمل في المجلس

That statement is really powerful, imagine if each member submits his financial status before commencing work; a financial statement that can always be a yardstick to the member’s honesty, especially when it comes to Municipality where the big buck is and very hard to specify the misdemeanor due to the nature of the task involved.

Dear Foziya
I hope that your statement is not just words on paper and is not only a good intention, now that you have the power to act; I hope you will prove it with action.
Best of luck to all.